Reel Advice: The way it goes

Filmmaker Richard Linklater has been what you could call a groundbreaking independent filmmaker for more than 20 years. Beginning with his 1991 feature Slacker, in which he not only helped to make the title of the film a part of the mainstream vernacular, but also ushered in Austin's unexpected hipster status, and continuing through Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, the gay-themed Bernie, and his beloved Before series (starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy), Linklater has been steadily working towards Best Director and Best Picture Oscars. He may have finally achieved that goal with Boyhood (Cinedigm/IFC).

Filmed over the course of 12 years, Boyhood clocks in at nearly three hours, but you'd never know it. The inventive and personal portrait of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), from grade-schooler to college freshman, features director Linklater's daughter Lorelei as Mason's sister Samantha, Patricia Arquette as Mason's mother Olivia and Ethan Hawke as Mason's father Mason Sr. Boyhood is such an intimate achievement, that the experiences of Mason's parents' divorce, Olivia's two unsuccessful remarriages, and the boy's maturation from a kid with a "horseshit attitude" (Olivia's words) to a philosophical and sensitive young man, feel completely authentic, not dramatized.

From bicycles to pick-up trucks, from underage beers to 'shrooms, from gutter balls to silver medals for photography, from first kisses to future romances, Mason's boyhood unfolds in ways audiences have never experienced. Linklater has earned the praise that is being heaped on him and now has the difficult task amazing us again with his next project, a challenge he will no doubt meet.

Michael Douglas, who won a 2013 Emmy for his portrayal of Liberace in Behind The Candelabra, has made a career of playing unlovable characters over the course of the last 25 or so years. From Gordon Gecko in Wall Street and Oliver Rose in The War of the Roses to Grady Tripp in Wonder Boys and Ben Kalmen in Solitary Man. You can now add curmudgeonly realtor Oren Little in A nd So It Goes to that list.

Racist, sexist, anti-child and anti-canine, Oren (Douglas) doesn't have anything nice to say about anybody, including his neighbors/tenants, his co-workers or even his own son Luke (Scott Shepherd). His deceased wife Sarah Beth was the only person he ever truly loved. That is until he meets, insults and makes nice with next door neighbor, the widowed and overly emotional lounge singer Leah (Diane Keaton).

But And So It Goes wouldn't be a rom-com for the senior set if Oren didn't go through a metamorphosis, like the caterpillars and butterflies in his granddaughter Sarah's (Sterling Jerins) science project. Of course, Oren didn't even know he had a granddaughter until his estranged son told him about her, shortly before going to prison for an SEC violation. And so it goes that Sarah and Leah aid in Oren's transformation.

And So It Goes was directed by long-time supporter of the LGBT community, Rob Reiner, the filmmaker responsible for classics such as the standard-setting rom-com When Harry Met Sally... , as well as This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me and Misery. Reiner appears to have mellowed since his `80s heyday. The fact that he had to resort to cheap physical comedy, including scenes involving a Slip'N Slide pratfall and a Rottweiler humping a giant teddy bear, indicate that he needs to find screenplays worthy of his, and his cast's, proven talents.